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“Within the natural conflicts of life, those generated by man are becoming more and more frequent and it would seem that humanity is struggling to destroy itself. The Pogo mural describes the conflict between opposing forces. On the one hand, water and nature push with force and life, containing the voracity of a beast of death that attacks from the other extreme, enveloped in sewage, garbage and human ambition.

Pogo represents a generation of illustrators and designers who are taking responsibility for the things that happen in the cities where they live and find their power in the realization of pieces with a strong meaning, in such a way that they capture the attention of the passer-by and stir their ideas until they make him reflect deeply.

Pogo’s high-contrast graphics describe a sincere and honest concern to try to be the best version of ourselves for the Earth, showing the best face to every problem and, like Pogo when making its wall, respond to every challenge with a huge smile.”

In collaboration and within the main altarpiece, Renata Martínez and Aaron Glasson also developed an altarpiece. In it they tell the story of thirst and the absence of water. On the far right, Macedonia Blas Flores, the indigenous woman and human rights defender who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, holds a jug of water with the attributes of Tlaloc. Behind him, a man with Spanish features holds another jar that has been broken by an indigenous boy to take advantage of his runoff and feed a garden.

The mural covers different topics such as water pollution, marine fauna affected by contaminated water, difficulties in getting water to the house, floods and droughts. Also at the bottom center of the composition, a piece by Renata shows the desperation in the form of a person trying to drink from a bottle so that the bottle seems to be drinking from it. On the far left and beyond the parking lot wall, the artists depict a masculine face that peeks under the surface of the water to look at the garbage, including a Spanish conqueror’s helmet. Next to it is the message “plastic is toxic”, inside a pet bottle, in the hand of a skeleton…

At the center of the mural, two stone figures symbolize nature and the creation of man, in a reflection that tells us that both the idol and the stone are of the same material, so why not preserve nature in the same way that the work of man is preserved?

The mural by Goal and Ryper, Keretan artists with deep graffiti backgrounds, emerges on the west side of the dome. We see the enormous head of Cipactli, the mythological being, similar to a crocodile, which was sacrificed by the Tezcatlipocas to create the world and nature, according to pre-Hispanic mythology. Cipactli gives his body so that Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca can divide it in two, creating the sky with his head and the earth with his body. So Cipactli is a metaphor for the beginning of nature. On the lizard, small molecules of carbon dioxide have reclaimed the atmosphere. Small and subtle, little by little they have made life more unstable and this is shown in the eyes of the sick reptile, which breathes a purplish and cloudy air. Beneath the lizard, life seeks to survive in the waters corroded by human activity and global warming, homes lie in agony barely able to withstand flooding. The Cipactli de Goal and Ryper looks to the south for the pure water that all beings claim, while pollutants and human settlements sneak up on it, threatening the life of Mexican fauna and the stability of the Earth as a result of the constant deterioration of water and habitats, generated by human ignorance and ambition.

In addressing the water issue, Smithe created a codex describing Tlaloc and Coatlicue, both worn and ill. The exploited gods are loaded with cables, pipes, wells and other artifacts necessary for humans to live; in contrast we find thirst, wear and tear, death and a final consequence for a species that seems to be forging its own destruction of not contemplating in depth the repercussions of its actions.

Placed firmly on four sections of the building, the complete composition describes an altarpiece of Mexican pop art that stands out for the clean strokes of the most skilled in graffiti and whose resonance is already beginning to influence contemporary graphics, defined by a style that is leaving its mark on world illustration.

Addressing the theme of thirst and despair, Saul’s work portrays a dreamlike landscape where creatures migrate from one side to the other seeking first to quench their thirst in the desert, first as a nuisance that becomes a terrible need for survival. Saul’s agglutinated line invites reflection and gives the message that without water we have nothing. On the left side of the mural, Saul approaches a more optimistic tone with a female face wrapped in symbols of fertility and life. The work is sprinkled with different forms, sometimes visionary and sometimes abstract, which make up a kind of garden graffiti artist of delights.

Sänk’s mural recreates the legend of the mystic Chan, the mythological creature that governs the waters of the springs where the liquid flows from the rock, and the responsibility of taking the water from Querétaro to the Zamorano hill when humans fight for it. Today the Chan seems to be further and further away from our cities, so we have to unite communities and actions to recover the ecological balance. On its wall, Sänk portrays the legend in which a wise man of the village invokes the chan, asking him to let the water of Zamorano flow so that it can return to the springs of the glen. The scene features a handful of Ajolotes, the extraordinary Mexican salamander that has the power to regenerate your organs. From them the rains come out, new rivers are born and at one end, hidden at the bottom of the space, in the limits of the building, the Blue Deer of the Wirrarica, lord of life, contemplates the rebirth of its garden.

“””Traced on the façade that gives access to the Science and Technology Museum of Foucault’s pendulum, Sermob’s mural speaks of the indivisible in the world. Sea creatures merge with the human archetype, highlighting the way in which the species that inhabit the earth are irretrievably linked; we are all one universal entity and the actions of one species can profoundly affect the existence of the other. In this way the angles in the shape and the watery figures that maintain the background composition direct our view upwards.

At the top of the piece, a person balances two buckets, symbolizing Tlaloc and the difficulty of bringing water to people. With this metaphor of Sermob, each inhabitant becomes a sort of Tlaloc, a god whose strength has been reduced before the action of others and whose need to bring water to those he loves plunges him into difficult tasks. Cities are no strangers to this, when the great mass becomes a single entity with a name; the Tlaloc that carries water to them becomes a snake hundreds of kilometres long, like the “”Aqueduct II””, until it reaches the inhabitants of the city who seem to live with naivety without knowing that perhaps in less than three years it will probably be an act of hope to open a tap.

The piece by the artist, originally from Iztapalapa, but who has lived in Querétaro for years, finishes off with vegetal accents of nopal whose importance has been vital in the life of the citizens since the foundation of the city and whose existence would be impossible without water. Sermob’s sharp and neat line defines an almost surgical precision that attracts visitors inside the children’s museum of “”the pendulum””, where behind the smile of every little boy awaits an inspired citizen who will be part of the generation of change agents that the country needs, those who will make Tlaloc its lightest burden.

“Every component of the water cycle is vital to life on earth. While it is common to think of water in its liquid state, high in the sky clouds contain an enormous amount of the world’s pure water. The industrial activities carried out without measure and the waste that our unconscious way of life throws away, significantly damages everything around us. In his mural, Miguel Valiñas tackles the theme of water and atmospheric pollution, creating with his brushes a cloud that takes the form of a siren in the sky, like a magical being that flows through the atmosphere in the hope of bringing us the waters we need gently, while the city, naive about its existence, continues to be damaged by the exhalations of its economic activity.

An architect by profession, Miguel Valiñas travels the world like his ethereal mermaid, creating murals, disseminating ideas and promoting awareness.”

For life to exist there must be balance, this is the message that the native of San Luis Potosi addresses in his work, this piece that describes a humanoid creature figure that releases the water that two hands hold, tells us about the evolution of life and that each living being depends on each other to grow and exist. The piece ends its message on the far right, where a plant like man goes through stages, making it clear that we are not so different when we all share a common need.

Made entirely with Calligraphy, the work by the Mexican artist, who lives in Dresden, Germany, highlights the problems of moving the liquid from one place to another, and his work flows strongly as a consequence of life.